After a long and sustained campaign to ensure Lewisham Hospital remains an elective Orthopaedic Care Centre, the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaigned have secured a ‘real victory.’

The NHS plans to balance the books with cuts and savings known as the Sustainability and Transformation Plan and administered by a commissioning group called Our Healthier South East London have conceded that Lewisham Hospital should join Guy’s Hospital and Orpington Hospital as a site for planned Orthopaedic Surgery. This has been called the ‘three site option’.

Cllr Alan Hall makes the case at OHSEL event

Councillors received a letter from OHSEL programme director Mark Easton saying: “Through this process we received strong representation that we should thoroughly test and describe a three site option for delivering orthopaedic care, and we should ask our providers to work collaboratively in describing that model.

“During these assessments, it has become clear that it has not been possible at this time for us to reach a consensus within the NHS in south east London on what the best model to adopt would be that met the conditions we had set out.

“We still intend to secure the patient benefits identified through the process, and therefore we will move forward with creating an orthopaedic clinical network across three sites to oversee the same delivery of quality and efficiency benefits over the next 12-18 months.”

Councillor Alan Hall said: “This is a real victory for the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee. Including Lewisham Hospital in the Orthopaedic Surgery sites was essential for good quality local services.

“I will be asking for an assurance that there will be full public consultation on any significant changes to our NHS as a result of the STP proposed by OHSEL. It is right that the public have a say in this major programme described as ‘challenging’.”

Councillor Alan Hall is a member of the Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee looking at the NHS plans proposed by OHSEL and the STP across six boroughs in South East London including Lewisham.